Aftermath

The year is 1839 and Emily Kaldwin is Empress of the Isles. She is thirteen years old, and someone has had the good sense to place a footstool in front of her mother's throne—otherwise, Emily's slippered feet would be dangling above the floor as she met with representatives from Tyvia, Morley, Serkonos, and Wei-Ghon.

Callista watches from the back of the mahogany reception chamber, lost among a crowd of minor courtiers. She does not like this room; the richly polished red paneling makes it feel blood-drenched and oppressive. Moreover, there are no windows, and with the late summer heatwave that has settled over Dunwall like a funeral shroud Callista is sweating in her court attire. Her neatly-coiffed hair feels damp against her scalp, and her frilled shirtwaist is sticking to her skin beneath her waistcoat. At the other end of the room, Emily's face is gleaming with perspiration, and it's clear she's trying not to squirm from discomfort. Only Corvo, standing slightly behind the throne with his hands clasped behind his back, seems impervious to the heat.

A Morleyan delegate is speaking of a drought in the southern part of his isle. He is requesting aid. Callista is privy to enough Parliament meetings to know that the drought is not as severe as the man is describing—if the king and queen of Morley would funnel the revenue from their heavy taxes into agricultural reform or (possibly) humanitarian aid for their subjects instead of stocking their hunting preserves with rare beasts from the Tyvian wilds, perhaps the hassle of a delegation could have been avoided. Is this a test? Do the king and queen wish to probe the depths of their Empress' compassion and see how easily Her Majesty could be swayed? Regardless, the answer to this plea will be in the negative—the imperial treasury has been stretched to the limit rebuilding Dunwall and stabilizing the Empire in the aftermath of the Rat Plague; not a single coin can be spared.

Emily's answer is as expected, but delivered with a grace that is slowly becoming natural rather than imitated. She is sitting with a straight back, and her voice does not break. A servant with a tray of crystal glasses glides soundlessly into position beside her and, at Corvo's nod of permission, offers a glass of sweetened lemon water. Callista is too far away to hear the ice clink inside the glass, but she can imagine the cool dampness of condensation against Emily's fingertips as she picks it up and drains it—slightly too quickly to be proper, but it is a hot day.

Callista looks away from Emily to fish her timepiece out of the front pocket of her waistcoat. The palm-sized watch gleams on its chain, the silver cover embossed with the name CURNOW in curling, filigreed script—a memorial gift she had received from the new head of the City Watch at her uncle's funeral. There had been a ceremony, but no body to bury or burn; Corvo had failed to save her uncle from Campbell's poison, and nothing would ever make that right.

He tried, though, Callista's thoughts prompted. Corvo had traversed the Empire with Geoff Curnow before Empress Jessamine's assassination, and he is not the sort of man to stand idly by while others suffer. He had tried to save her uncle; Callista has to trust in that.

Callista opens the lid of the watch with her thumbnail and checks the time—it's almost noon. She closes the lid with a soft click, slips the watch into its pocket, and looks back up at Emily. The young Empress looks more wan than before, almost frail, and Callista watches a bead of sweat trickle down the side of her neck. She turns towards Corvo and murmurs something too soft for anyone else to hear, and is already slipping off the throne and making for the gilded doors leading to the residential wing as Corvo announces that the audience session has come to an end. Callista frowns; Emily could and should have announced that herself, and also should have made a more dignified exit.

Callista sighs and leaves the mahogany reception chamber with the rest of the courtiers. The nice thing about being relegated to the back is that she is close to the main door, and it's a simple matter to leave that stuffy room and walk briskly down the corridors of Dunwall Tower. There are a pair of guardswomen at the western entrance to the residential wing, but they recognize her and allow her to pass. She hurries to Emily's rooms.

Emily is not in the sitting room, the private dining room, the study, or the bedchamber—nor is she in the hidden safe room that Callista would never reveal to another soul even if put under torture. Instead, the young Empress is in the washroom joined to the bedchamber; Callista can hear her vomiting into the chamber pot through the closed door.

Your Majesty? she calls.

The retching stops after several heartbeats more, and is followed by the sound of water in the sink. Callista imagines Emily rinsing out her mouth. The sound of water stops.

Get the physician, Emily says, voice ragged. Get Corvo. I... I think I've been poisoned.

Alarm klaxons start sounding in Callista's mind. Her chest tightens, so much so that she can barely breathe. She crosses the bedchamber mechanically, moving aside a lamp on the nightstand to reveal a strange device—an invention of Piero's—with several buttons. She presses the red one and returns to the washroom door.

May I enter, Your Majesty? she asks.

I'm undressed, Emily warns.

Callista hesitates, then takes a shaky breath and tests the doorknob. It isn't locked, and she enters. Inside the washroom, Emily has wrapped a towel around her waist and is sitting on the edge of the claw-foot bathtub in her stockings. Her trousers, drawers, and slippers have been kicked into a corner, and Callista can see spots of blood in Emily's underthings.

This cannot be happening, she thinks, not so soon after Empress Jessamine...

Blood. In Emily's underthings.

Your Majesty, Callista begins, What causes you to suspect a poisoning?

It hurts, Emily says. She still looks queasy, and her face is as pale as a bedsheet. She places her hands low on her stomach, right above her pelvis. Here. It hurts so much, and I threw up, and—and— Emily's voice trembles, as do her hands. Callista kneels on the tile in front of her and holds them.

We talked about the changes your body would go through, Callista says.

I know what you said. You said the bleeding might hurt a little bit, Emily retorts. It actually hurts a lot. Something's wrong. It—it was that lemon water, it has to be. Who else drank some? Who—

Emily! Corvo calls. He crosses the bedchamber to the open door of the washroom with a speed that seems inhuman. His sword is drawn, and the sight of the naked steel makes Callista's breath catch in her throat. She jumps to her feet and moves aside as Corvo kneels before his daughter and holds her shoulders. He questions her, but Callista doesn't understand the words. She can only hear the hard urgency of his tone, which fuels the panic rising in her throat.

She leaves the washroom and leans against the bedchamber wall, forcing herself to breathe even though her chest feels as though it has been caught in a vise. Each inhale is a count of four, and each exhale is another count of four. She imagines Emily coughing blood onto Corvo's chest and collapsing, lifeless, in his arms. She imagines Emily bleeding from the eyes like a weeper and collapsing again. She imagines her suffocating, choking to death as toxins spread through her small body. It wasn't poison. There is no poison. Emily is simply menstruating. It wasn't—she imagines being blamed for the assassination of Empress Emily Kaldwin. She imagines attempting to defend herself in court—no, no, there would be no trial, there would only be Corvo's sword separating her head from her shoulders. She imagines her head tumbling to the carpeted floor, her hair coming loose from its pins, blood spraying across the painted wall. She raises her hand to her mouth to cage a sob behind her fingers. She counts to four. She counts to four again. She realizes she has not been breathing and restarts the count.

Corvo is still speaking, but no longer to Emily. His voice is much closer now.

Miss Curnow, he says, and Callista swallows a shriek. She has to fight a shiver of fear when the man puts a hand on her shoulder—to comfort her, of course, because his sword has been sheathed and he would not hurt her. He would not hurt her.

It is the sheathed sword that comforts her more than the weight of his hand.

The Empress is fine, Corvo says. He hesitates, and then continues: My sister drank willow tea during her menses—for the pain. Do you think...

My mother suggested the same thing to me, Callista says. It won't cloud her mind like laudanum. I've also heard that exercise can help.

Corvo’s brow furrows. My sister was adamant that physical exertion made the pain worse.

Callista pauses, thinking, then asks: How did she feel about doing her chores?

It takes a moment, but then Corvo gives a rare smile. She was always clever, he says, and steps away. Callista relaxes with the distance between them. She moves further away, slipping into the washroom to help Emily with the buttoned belt that will hold a cloth pad between her legs. There is a panicked fog swirling around the periphery of her mind, but her hands shake only slightly, and she manages a smile for the young Empress that is mostly sincere.

Congratulations, Your Majesty, Callista says. You're a woman now.

Emily makes a face at her as she pulls her drawers and trousers back on overtop the belt, but for once Callista does not rebuke her for it. Emily goes solemn, and her mouth flattens into a frown that has nothing to do with the pain roiling in her belly. The young Empress watches her tutor, and her dark eyes are sharp and thoughtful.

Are you alright, Callista? she asks.

Callista's grip on the doorknob tightens. I'm fine, she lies. She does not attempt to laugh for fear that it would sound hysterical. You gave us quite a scare, she adds.

I don't feel well enough for my afternoon lessons today, Emily says. Why don't you take the rest of the day off?

Callista blinks. Emily is looking at her as though she's doing her tutor a kindness, rather than insisting on sick leave from her geography and history lessons. I... she begins, but isn't sure how to continue.

I insist, Emily says.

Callista gives a slight bow. As you wish, Your Majesty, she replies, and turns. She leaves the Empress' residence within Dunwall Tower, her heeled boots clicking against the wooden floor, and heads to the lower level. The painted walls, covered with artwork and ornaments, change to bare plaster with exposed wiring, and the floors start to show scuff-marks and age; she is in the servants' private domain now. She collects her hat and bag from a locker in the upper cloakroom and exits the Tower via the kitchen door, stepping out under the gaze of the bright, wrathful sun that is so uncharacteristic of Dunwall. The red-faced doorman, sagging under the unrelenting brutality of the heat, barely manages to tip his cap to her. She nods back to him and heads east, toward her new home in the estate district.

Walking home calms her somewhat, or at least gives her a goal. Her breathing is still shallow and fast, and she is sweating from more than the heat of the day. The image of Corvo's bare sword keeps resurfacing in her mind. What if Emily truly had been poisoned? What if they had lost another Empress so soon after Jessamine? What if—

Callista tries to push the endless, circling thoughts away. She knows that they aren't helpful to her and bring only distress. As a child, she had been plagued with a sense of anxiety so strong that she bit her lips bloody and scratched her arms raw. Uncle Geoff, despairing alongside her parents, had taught her to box, and that had proved an effective way to shut her mind off. Overthinking a jab or a hook never earned Callista more than bruises and lost time, and her growing proficiency had helped her feel safe. But sometimes (most of the time) it isn't possible to pummel a dummy when it feels like the world is crashing down around her ears. The old litany restarts in her mind, in her uncle's voice:

Your fears are irrational. Your fears have no basis in reality. Your fears will not come true. You are not in danger. You will wake up tomorrow and everything will be alright, the same as it is today.

Callista draws a breath and forces herself to slow from her almost-run. She reaches the apartment building where she lives, and the aging doorman, Mr. Crozier, greets her by name and gets up from his stool to open the door for her. She mumbles a noncommittal reply, avoiding eye contact as she steps into the foyer. Inside, her surroundings appear dim without the brilliant afternoon sunlight, but it's only a degree or two cooler. She marches up to the fourth floor, her steps echoing along the creaking stairs, her hot breath puffing into the equally hot and humid air—she might as well be in Karnaca rather than Dunwall!

Your fears are irrational. Your fears have no basis in reality. Your fears will not come true. You are not in danger. You will wake up tomorrow and everything will be alright, the same as it is today.

Someone laughs in the apartment adjacent to Callista's, and for a moment she stares, wide-eyed, at her neighbor's door with her heart thundering in her chest. The building is inhabited by rich young things who have money but will inherit neither their family's townhome nor country estate. Callista, from a firmly middle-class background but with a salary befitting the Empress' favored tutor, moved in several months ago. Nobody has greeted her yet.

She fumbles her key and nearly drops it. The door next to hers opens. Callista tenses but does not look up, and her neighbor moves past her without speaking. Callista unlocks her apartment, steps inside, and shuts the door behind her. She locks it again.

Your fears are irrational. Your fears have no basis in reality. Your fears will not come true. You are not in danger. You will wake up tomorrow and everything will be alright, the same as it is today.

She drops her key into the catch-all tray on an end table near the door. She sets her bag down on the divan and hangs her hat on the appropriate hook on the wall. She removes her boots and sets them on the low rack beside the end table. She unbuttons her waistcoat with hands that are shaking harder than ever, the jet buttons slipping against her sweat-damp fingers. She shrugs the waistcoat off her shoulders with more force than is strictly necessary.

The watch slips from its pocket as she moves, leaping into the air and swinging from its chain like a silver-scaled fish struggling on a line. Callista, the armholes of the waistcoat caught around her elbows, grabs for it. She feels the brush of textured metal, warm from its proximity to her body, against her fingertips. It swings out of reach, and the watch's chain slips out of the buttonhole she had threaded it through. The watch falls to the floor and strikes the wooden boards with a sharp crack.

Callista stops breathing.

She kneels down, picks up the watch, and holds it to her ear. Silence has replaced the steady ticking, and when she fumbles the lid open she can see that the hands have gone still, and that the glass covering them has splintered.

Your fears are irrational. Your fears have no basis in reality. Your fears will not come true. You are not in danger. You will wake up tomorrow and everything will be alright, the same as it is—

Except today isn't alright.

Callista collapses into a sitting position on the floor, curling around the broken watch in her hands. Her fears are entirely rational; she watched from the tower beside the pub as the Admiral shot Lydia and Wallace in the yard. Her fears are firmly based in reality; she helped Cecelia wrap the corpses of her fellow Loyalists in bedsheets, and felt the stickiness of their cooled blood against her hands. Her fears will come true; Emily has not entirely stabilized the Empire, and she is far too young to have the kind of enemies that she does. Eventually, Emily will make a mistake, and Corvo will not be there to save her. The Empire will collapse into civil war. Callista will be in danger then, and nobody will save her, the way nobody saved her uncle. She will wake up tomorrow and her parents and uncle will still be dead, just as they are today. Uncle Geoff is gone. He is dead, he died of poison just as Emily will die, and nothing will bring him back. There is nobody to protect her. There is nobody to comfort her. She is alone, alone, alone.

The apartment walls are thin; Callista bites her hand to stifle her sobs, her breaths heaving in and out of her lungs too hard, too fast. She is breathing deep but she cannot get enough air; she is dizzy, and black spots swarm across her tear-blurred vision. It feels like her heart will burst in her chest from the strain of its frantic drumming, and she cannot stop the low, relentless mewl of distress that worms its way up her throat.

Callista stays on the floor for what could have been minutes or hours. Her hands are numb and bloodless from her grip on the broken pocket watch, and she unclenches her fingers slowly, prying them away from the heavy silver. She relaxes her shoulders, her legs, and forces her breathing to slow. She counts to four over and over again, breathing in and out, until she feels strong enough to stand. She does so, and then slowly walks from the sitting room, to the narrow hallway, and then to the washroom. She turns the tap over the sink and listens to the sound of water gurgling down the drain in the basin.

In the mirror, her hair has halfway escaped from its pins and looks a mess. Her face is worse: reddened, tear-streaked, with a dripping nose and puffy eyes. She washes her face mechanically, patting her skin dry with a towel, then pulls out the pins in her coiffure and sets them aside. She is reaching for her hairbrush when she hears the faint scuff of stealthy footsteps in her bedroom.

Callista freezes.

She is not Corvo Attano; she does not carry a sword upon her person every moment of every day. The knives are out of reach in the kitchen. The heavy, wrought iron poker is similarly out of reach next to the fireplace in the sitting room. Her hatpins—lauded as a gentlewoman's last means of self-defense—are also several rooms away. Callista flexes her fingers, curling her hands into fists. Uncle Geoff taught her to box, but she isn't a fool; no self-respecting burglar would conduct a break-in unarmed, and bare knuckles against a mobster's cleaver isn't something she wants to face. The only advantage Callista has is that the intruder doesn't know she's aware of his or her presence.

Callista permits herself a single breath to steady herself, then steps out of the washroom. In her stockings, she is soundless as she moves toward the entrance of the bedroom. The door is ajar, and she sees a flash of movement as someone—a very small someone—moves past the gap. A child? Callista knows the gangs in Dunwall will recruit urchins to beg and pick pockets, but surely conducting burglaries goes beyond... what does it matter? The intruder has broken into her apartment and is no doubt pawing through her things; Callista will end this.

She kicks the door open with a yell that is just as much to bolster her own courage as it is to frighten the burglar. The door swings back on its hinges and crashes against the wall. The burglar lets out a high-pitched yelp of alarm, but Callista is already upon them. She jabs with her left fist, but the burglar ducks out of the way—which puts them within easy range of an uppercut. Callista's fist grazes the intruder's cheek just as she recognizes Emily's face.

Callista pulls back immediately, her eyes going wide. Your Majesty!

Emily looks at her, visibly shaken.

Callista gentles her voice. What are you doing here?

I... Emily begins, then looks down at Callista's hands. I didn't know you knew how to fight.

My uncle taught me to defend myself as a teenager, though I'm no prizefighter. Does Corvo know you're here?

No, Emily answers, and Callista's heart sinks.

What possessed you to come here, and come here alone? You could have been kidnapped! You could have been murdered!

Emily wrinkles her nose. It's the estate district in the middle of the afternoon, Callista. There's plenty of City Watch patrolling; I was fine. She grins. I changed my clothes and put on a hat and nobody recognized me.

Callista sighs. Emily is wearing the uniform of a Tower hallboy, no doubt pilfered from the laundry room, with her hair hidden under a cap. She was lucky that she wasn't recognized in the city. She was even more lucky that she wasn't caught and detained by the City Watch when she—

How did you get into my apartment? We're on the fourth floor, Callista asks.

I climbed, and your window was unlatched, Emily answers, and Callista shudders as she imagines the young Empress falling to her death from a rooftop. She shakes herself free from her imagination with a mental effort.

Your Majesty, front doors exist for a reason, she tries.

Emily shrugs. There was a man there, and he wouldn't let me in. I had to improvise.

Stars bless Mr. Crozier, Callista thinks ruefully, and then she tries a different tactic: I'm sure Corvo is very worried about you right now. We need to get you back to Dunwall Tower.

Emily sets her jaw in defiance. I came here to check on you!

That is... kind of you, Your Majesty, but I'm quite alright. You have more important matters to concern yourself with.

Emily isn't convinced. You don't look alright. You look like you've been crying.

I... Callista begins, then rethinks what she was about to say. I miss my uncle and parents a lot sometimes, and sometimes I cry because I miss them so much. It isn't quite a lie.

Emily nods in sympathy. I miss Mother a lot, too. It's hard to talk to Corvo about it; I don't want to make him sad.

I understand, Callista says. She hesitates. I appreciate you coming here, but you do need to return to Dunwall Tower as quick as possible. You're an empress; it isn't safe for you to wander alone.

Emily sniffs in derision of that statement, but doesn't scowl. She squints at her tutor for a moment, thinking. Will you come with me? she asks after a moment. And can we get fried honey cakes from a street vendor on the way back?

Yes, I'll walk with you, Callista says, but why do you want fried honey cakes?

Because they're good, and because I think about eating them whenever I feel sad. Corvo doesn't let me have them all the time, but we can get some, and you'll feel better! Emily grins again and bounces on the balls of her feet.

It's impossible not to indulge her. I suppose we could find a street vendor... Callista says.

Emily does a little dance on the spot.

But, I have to re-pin my hair and powder my face before we go, Callista continues, and the way Emily's face falls into a look of distressed impatience is so comical that she has to laugh. Emily endures it in good spirits, and prowls around the apartment like a curious cat as Callista gets her face and hair in order and then dons all of the clothing she had previously discarded. Emily dashes down the stairs ahead of her tutor, and Mr. Crozier's eyes widen when Callista steps out of the building's front door alongside a child she did not enter with. She smiles reassuringly at him, and is surprised by the sincerity of her expression.

The sun is shining brightly. People are walking down the streets around them, sweating and complaining and laughing and talking. Dunwall is alive again, recovering steadily from the devastation of the Rat Plague. The city is not as it once was, just as Callista is not as she once was, but the plague did not crush the city beyond repair. Callista touches the bulk of the broken watch in her waistcoat pocket; she will take it to a workshop tomorrow, but in the meantime, she is sure that her uncle would be proud of her.